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A New Way To Use Your Mac To Wake Up Each Day

How many ways can you use a Mac? Our favorite Cupertino computer does more than browse the web, check email, display photos, play music or video.

If we could add iPhone’s Siri intelligent assistant to a Mac and have it tell us what to do each day, I’d pay a little more for the privilege. As it is, most of us are required to cobble together various and sundry apps to fully customize our Macs.

Here’s an app you will enjoy using, but you’ll have to think twice about how to use it.

Wake Me Up Before You Go Go

It’s official. I have an even dozen Mac apps that time something, sound out alerts, shut down or wake up.

My latest is a free app called Wake Up Time. It looks like an alarm clock. It works like an alarm clock.

So, let’s call it a Mac alarm clock. Specifically, it looks like an old-time Sony alarm clock that my parents have in their bedroom.

Wake Up Time does more. It’s the old fashioned LCD-like alarm clock that displays the day of the week along with the time.

The snooze time is customizable. The sound volume can be faded in. Here’s what it looks like:

Click and the controls slide out to the right so you can set the alarm clock (remarkably similar to an old fashioned LCD alarm clock).

Choose the sound you want for the alarm (it needs to have iTunes music, but doesn’t) and set the sound volume.

As long as your Mac is awake, Wake Up Time will alert you with an alarm, give you an option to snooze for awhile, and makes your $1,000-plus MacBook a very expensive alarm clock while you sleep.

Therein lies the major problem with wake up alarms on the Mac. It’s a Mac. It needs to be in the bedroom with you, nearby preferably.

Worse, most of these alarms don’t work when the MacBook (Air or Pro) has the lid closed in sleep mode. The alarm doesn’t work if you have password protection on while sleeping. And, of course, nothing works if it’s powered off.

Other than the standard list of caveats, Wake Up Time is a nice little app (currently free) that’s easy on the eyes and ears, and comes with easy controls.

5G? Meh!

About Wil Gomez

I live in Brooklyn, New York and work in Manhattan; a Mac owner for almost 25 years, and an IT specialist on mixed platforms-- Mac, Windows, and Linux. Read more of my articles here. My fiancée is semi-famous Kate MacKenzie. Follow her on PixoBebo.